A Phonetic Study Of Shao-Jiang Dialect

Shaojiang district is made up of Shaowu, Guanze, Jiangle countys and the western townsof Shunchang county, which is divided from the dialect perspective rather than theadministrative point. The special geographical location is the main reason why the dialectof Shaojiang district can become so complicated and thus has something to discuss.Theoretically, neither the Min dialect nor the Hakka dialect and Gan dialect is thesubstratum of Shaojiang district dialect, but the so-called Baiyue language in ancienttimes, which is the same to the other southern Chinese languages.Because of the long-term contact, the dialect in this region has some elements of the Mindialect, Hakka dialect and Gan dialect. There are more phonetic elements of the Mindialect in Shaojiang dialect than in the other dialects. The phonetic feature means theperforming characteristics in the actual phonetics, as opposed to its past.The sound of words in the same position has different forms of speech. Therefore, thephonetics of Shaojiang dialect is unlike other dialects which can be generally analogized.In the same group(韵摄), there are often more than one set of consonants(声母), a widerange of finals(韵母) and some tone types (调类)in different developing directions.Some common features can be generated by contact. The features in Shaojiang districtdialect is formed by contacting with its neighboring district dialects such as Min Dialectand so on, whose final performance is not equivalent to the Min dialect, nor to otherdialects. Thus we can call it Shaojiang dialect.